When a Prisoner isn't a Prisoner
by betawho
Summary: The Doctor is taking his new Companion to meet his wife... A sequel to "When a Prison isn't a Prison."


"Would you like to meet her?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes," his Companion breathed out in awe. What kind of woman must his wife be to evoke such a response from the Doctor? A man who'd literally seen stars being born.

The Doctor flew around the console, once again his happy, twirly self. He typed in some coordinates and pulled the dematerialization lever. She felt the lurch of the Tardis as it spun off down the vortex.

He moved to another panel, one she hadn't seen him use before, he turned this and tweaked that and checked some readings, working steadily but with a bit more attention than she was used to.

"What are you doing?"

He looked up. "Oh, just precautions." He waved it away airily, his other hand still putting in instructions.

There was the hearty bump of materialization and he grabbed her hand and sprinted down to the door. She swallowed in trepidation. She looked down at her hand in his, and wondered what his wife would think about that.

He put a finger to his lips and grinned, he opened the door quietly.

They were in the Stormcage Containment Facility. The highest security prison in the known universe, or at least that's where he said his wife was imprisoned.

Outside the doors was a murky, green-lit corridor, and across the corridor, was a cage. Three walls, a floor, and a ceiling forming a box of concrete, with a front wall made up entirely of wide metal bars. There was no privacy, no place to hide.

The woman inside didn't seem to notice.

She was sitting on a thin prison cot, bent over a high tech laptop, ancient books and papers piled all around her. Her eyes quickly scanning the text, a stylus bouncing against her lips as she thought.

His wife wasn't at all what she'd expected from the Doctor's description.

The Tardis door squeaked as the Doctor pulled it shut.

The woman looked up, and her face beamed into a smile. "Hello, Sweetie."

Her voice was low and husky, and as she got up and prowled toward the bars, she moved as if the world flowed around her. She was a tiger. Not in the sexy meaning of the term. Although there was certainly that too. But in the sense of coiled power that radiated off her, power cloaked in raw, elemental beauty.

She prowled right toward the bars, completely ignoring them. The Doctor soniced them open and stepped in. The woman grinned at him and tipped her head, pure flirtation. "You remembered to take the brakes off," she said.

Her fingers stole up his chest, her body merging right into his space, as she stroked his bow tie. The Doctor didn't back away, accepting her weight when she leaned her forearm against his chest, her fingers on that tie.

For so innocent a touch, the air practically throbbed around them. He looked down at her with a deep, adoring fascination. She met his eyes, hers full of female power, promise, and a silent communication that heated the very air in the room.

His Companion blinked and pulled back. She felt like she was intruding between two Greek gods, in the presence of titans. Yet when she really looked at them, all they appeared to be was a man and a woman. A mismatched pair at that. He, tall and lanky, a shank of bones and floppy hair who looked as if he was about to drop something. She, the broad, muscular one, who looked like she could tear enemies apart.

Yet she'd never seen anyone so fundamentally female before. The woman carried herself as if she were dressed in silk and ermine, yet, when she studied her clothes, she realized the woman was actually wearing a pair of baggy gray sweatpants, a pair of clunky workboots, and a sweat-stained tank top. She should have looked like an athletic couch potato.

Instead she looked like an avatar.

The woman turned an assessing gaze on her. It had the weight of lightning, as if she was being studied by Athena.

"Who's this?"

Face on, she could suddenly see the eagle in the woman. Proud, free, unfettered by anything as lowly as mere concrete and steel. A mind as quicksilver as a hawk. As dangerous as a predator. As deep and forceful as the ocean. Yet as calm.

She blinked, as if she'd been staring too long at the sun. She shook her head, trying to shake some sense into it. She was simply looking at a female inmate at a prison. Yet when she looked back, she saw the woman looking at her with those same clear breathtaking eyes the Doctor had startled her with.

Eyes of gray and green and silver, like water, elemental, wild.

If there was a Goddess of Storms, it was this woman. The Oncoming Storm's wife.

The River's Song.

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><p>For more stories by this author click on "betawho" at the top of the page.<p>

Includes the previous story, "When a Prison isn't a Prison."

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